Post by Jeni Treehugger on Jul 4, 2009 16:10:00 GMT
Britain could be fully vegetarian by later this century
THE amount of meat being eaten in Britain is fast diminishing according to the latest Government agricultural figures.
Viva! - Europe's largest campaigning animal group, believe if current trends continue, the UK will be fully vegetarian by later this century.
Figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that last year over 13 million fewer farmed land animals were slaughtered in the UK than the year before. The group maintains that the trend is continuing downwards, with nearly 50 million fewer killed in 2008 than in 2005.
Viva! also argue that this fall is not because we are importing more. Figures show that consumption of poultry meat in the UK last year fell by a massive 67,000 tonnes (four percent); pig meat consumption fell by a staggering 74,000 tonnes (down by over five per cent).
Viva! campaigns manager, Justin Kerswell, says: "It is great that so many British consumers are turning their backs on meat and going veggie. However, almost nine hundred million animals are still killed for meat each year in the UK, most of them living appallingly short lives in squalid conditions and facing a terrifying death so we clearly have a long way to go but we are winning. Concerns about animal cruelty, health and the state of the planet are growing daily and vegetarianism and veganism provides a solution to all of them. It's needed like never before."
viva.org.uk/
THE amount of meat being eaten in Britain is fast diminishing according to the latest Government agricultural figures.
Viva! - Europe's largest campaigning animal group, believe if current trends continue, the UK will be fully vegetarian by later this century.
Figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that last year over 13 million fewer farmed land animals were slaughtered in the UK than the year before. The group maintains that the trend is continuing downwards, with nearly 50 million fewer killed in 2008 than in 2005.
Viva! also argue that this fall is not because we are importing more. Figures show that consumption of poultry meat in the UK last year fell by a massive 67,000 tonnes (four percent); pig meat consumption fell by a staggering 74,000 tonnes (down by over five per cent).
Viva! campaigns manager, Justin Kerswell, says: "It is great that so many British consumers are turning their backs on meat and going veggie. However, almost nine hundred million animals are still killed for meat each year in the UK, most of them living appallingly short lives in squalid conditions and facing a terrifying death so we clearly have a long way to go but we are winning. Concerns about animal cruelty, health and the state of the planet are growing daily and vegetarianism and veganism provides a solution to all of them. It's needed like never before."
viva.org.uk/
